Musicians buy YouTube fans

No shame

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In an age where popularity is measured by social media hits, some musicians are reportedly buying YouTube views and Facebook likes to boost their profile among record labels.

YouTube threatens to terminate any account it suspects of buying views - Facebook and Twitter take similar stances - but that clearly hasn't scared away artists who have paid as little as £30 for 10,000 views to grace their videos.

While the actions would be deemed unjustifiable by many, it does reflect the difficult state of the music industry today, where there are far more channels to get yourself out there – but getting yourself noticed is harder than ever.

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